Something funny for money

Friday as I'm sure most of you know, saw the return of Comic Relief and before I had children, if I'm honest and slightly ashamed to admit, I think I was slowly become immune to these types of events. However I was deeply moved this year on two levels. Firstly Jamie who is very nearly 7, took a real interest in the imminent arrival of the special day and gave me a shopping list consisting of a red nose for him and Stanley-check, a red nose for the car-check and some red hair spray or a wig-check.

On Thursday evening, he and I went to the bedroom and had a mini fashion show, pulling out all items of varying rouge shades so that he could design the perfect outfit of his choice. He chose his red pyjama bottoms, his red England tshirt to go under his red hoody top, accompanied by red slippers, red hair spray and the face of a clown with of course the honorary painted red nose. A great choice I think you'll agree?

After an immensely fun day of activities and fundraising at school, he came home and we watched some of the programme on BBC1. When we were by ourselves, he became deeply moved by one of the appeals in particular which featured ques of poorly children in Uganda with malaria waiting to get admitted to hospital after lengthy and tiring journeys. He was baffled by the fact that these children were unnecessarily ill due in part, to lack of funds and therefore unable to purchase preventative equipment such as mosquito nets which cost only £5. During this feature it also said that 1 child dies every 45 seconds and when I told him that it would take approximately just over an hour to loose the equivalent of all the children in his school, the tragedy of it all really hit home. Jamie's school works closely with a Ugandan school so this brought about further empathetic discussions and for the first time, he really seemed to grasp the whole concept.

For me, being fortunate enough to have given birth to two gorgeous and healthy boys, watching various excerpts where parents had suffered painful losses of their children through often no fault of their own, made me very reflective. Until you are a parent, I don't think you can truly understand the effect they have on your life and the unconditional love you feel. The thought of me being faced with the choices or decisions that these people had to make is nothing short of horrifying.

Another disaster in the news at the moment is obviously the Tsunami tragedy in Japan. Again to have whole towns completely wiped out seems unimaginable and even after seeing the endless footage on the news, I have trouble grasping the absolute devastation these people must be facing. My very close friend Katie who is a leader for Bude Women's Running Network and will be running The London Marathon this year (amongst others) made me aware of runforjapan.com where you dedicate a run to the people of Japan. In the pouring rain on Friday morning we both went out and ran 2.4 miles and on my return I donated and dedicated to this very worthy cause. The thought of her very tasty homemade scones that were calling me with the clotted cream and jam really spurred me on. I am fairy new to running and whilst I am not someone who naturally enjoys it, I feel great afterwards with a real sense of achievement and that is all thanks to the great encouragement of these two ladies maidincornwall.blogspot.com and thedaytodavis.co.uk Check them out. They are both very clever and inspirational ladies who Im fortunate to be able to call my very close friends and for anyone in the vicinity of Bude who is looking to start some exercise/running, meet new people and improve your fitness gradually, BWRN comes highly recommended http://www.womensrunningnetwork.co.uk/womens_running_network_join_us/find_a_running_group/South_West/Cornwall/Bude.htm